


Misericordia

by jesshelga



Category: The Exorcist (TV)
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Missing Scene, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-16
Updated: 2017-01-16
Packaged: 2018-09-17 19:16:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9339287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jesshelga/pseuds/jesshelga
Summary: Marcus distinctly remembered every time he’d been struck or bitten. Absentmindedly, he ran his fingers over the stitches that were binding his latest prize that would become a very noticeable scar on the most fragile part of his arm and wrist. It was a new and terrible sensation to have been touched by a demon in a manner that was gentle, Simon’s hand on the crown of his head, a blessing but an inky black one, like being bitten by a lamb with a mouth full of razors.A patchwork quilt of Marcus, both before, during, and after the events of S1.





	

There is too much to correct, adjust and protect after pulling Tomas away from Casey. It’s not love the demon is exploiting. It’s an understandable mistake, the mistake of a novice shaken and vulnerable.  _ Not love,  _ Marcus thinks, focusing on the more important matter, hands steadying the young priest.

Later on, as he rests, Marcus has time to find the words. But it is too late and Tomas is gone.

_ Shame… it finds shame, Tomas. I told you at the very beginning. _

When his mother appears later that evening, he thinks of the word again: shame _. _

* * *

 

“Oh, you were such a mess at Aquinas.” The words slithered, mocking and greasy with false pity. The hiss of the water, a familiar white noise, did not stop them from wriggling into Marcus’ mind.

Like in dreams or nightmares, Marcus had found himself at St. Aquinas with no recollection of how he was transported there, how long he’d been there once he regained some semblance of awareness. He was unable or unwilling to eat; he did remember that much, the gnawing hunger passing into a sort of heady, fluttering numbness. At times, he cried until he vomited, his sides and esophagus aching and strained. His thoughts did not hold together, but one fragment kept reappearing, both in his mind and sometimes, unbidden, on his lips.

_ Just a boy… he was just a boy. Just a boy, just a boy, only 7 years old. _

Priests, even those charged with the rehabilitation and repair of their broken brothers, were not much for psychology or self-reflection. No nature or nurture: only prayer and divine intervention. So it was left to Marcus to discover the realization, all on his own in his private room as he drew the Mount St Bernard Abbey, that the same could be said for Marcus Keane. He too had been just a boy. Many years ago, he’d been a boy.

* * *

 

After his first visit to Convent of Our Lady of Mercy, Marcus found himself reminiscing about a conversation he’d had whilst at a bar in Inverness. He couldn’t recall how the topic of religion had come up--he was in seminary at the time but was kicking about Scotland on a brief holiday; no collar, no interest in much beyond drinking malt whisky and walking up and down the hills and moors--but another student, an American, a Presbyterian on a kind of John Knox crawl who fancied himself clever, said at some point in the discussion, “What is it with you Catholics and Mary?”

Easy to dismiss at the time--what kind of hypocrite jokes about idolatry in almost the same breath as describing his trip to the John Knox House like he’d been to Graceland--but in retrospect, Marcus found himself rankled in a more personal way by the joke. While he couldn’t speak for all Catholics, he knew his experience--his own mother and the nuns who stood in for the Virgin--had given him a well-rounded and very grounded understanding in the failings and frustrations of mothers. He didn’t see why Mary would be different from any of the others.

_ She sits beside him at the long dining table. He feels, much as he did the first time she sat next to him in the garden, a peculiar longing to take a breath and unburden his whole heart and mind to her. Does she know already? Does she talk to God, and does He tell her about Marcus Keane? _

_ She sets the rosary in front of him and places his hand on hers, guides his hand to the rough beads. _

_ “Are you sure?” he says. _

_ She smiles her faint, terse smile and nods. _

_ Marcus picks it up, feels the weight of it, the needle-like tip of the cross grazing his palm. He finds himself thinking not of The Holy Rosary but of the first shiv he fashioned for himself in the boys’ home. _

_ Mother Bernadette gently taps his cheek to get his attention, and he turns his gaze back to hers. Her eyes are steady and knowing. He nods, takes in a deep breath, and before he splits open, he takes his hat and bag and departs. _

* * *

Not long after the Rance family left town, he found the 45 in a store just off the Logan Square blue line stop. He knew cassettes were hard to come by these days, but because vinyl had made a roaring comeback, he only had to visit the first of the music and thrift stores on the list Tomas put together for him before he found it.

It was scuffed by time but had the vivid Motown logo shining at the center. Marcus noted a few visible scratches and found himself smiling in spite of himself. He bought it along with a brand-new record player.

_ Bernadette _

_ People are searching for the kind of love that we possess. _

As the record rotated and rolled out its soul, Marcus sharpened his charcoal pencil. 1967--she would have been in her mid-20s when the Four Tops released that song. Out of the schoolroom, no longer a novice, at home in her order.

Shavings swept aside, Marcus flipped over the paper sleeve of the 45 and began to sketch out the leaves of  _ atropa belladonna. _ While he drew, he sang along with the lyrics he knew. When his memory failed him out, he filled in from another source.

_ Inspired by this confidence _

_ Though burdened by my sins _

_ I run to your protection _

_ Bernadette _

* * *

 

The last night he was in Chicago, before Bennett called him and Tomas away to meet with Pope Sebastian in Vatican City, Marcus returned to the convent. They’d made quite an effort to lock the front door with chain. But Marcus was an old hand at chains, and it wasn’t long before he was walking into the hushed halls.

_ You could have asked, _ Bennett said to him as they made their way through the streets of Vatican City, shaking his head.  _ You never want to do anything the easy way. _

The blood had been cleaned away. Marcus himself had helped with that duty not long after he’d visited Angela Rance in the hospital where she was treated for her broken back. Father Sean called the application of steaming water with a scrub brush Second Baptism; what Marcus didn’t know about chains, he knew about removing viscera and fluids from stubborn stone and wood; what else could he do other than see to the funeral services, and he could not, could not do that. 

All that was left were paintings and furniture and the hint that something terrible had happened here. He was honest with Henry when he says there isn’t such a thing as sensing an evil presence. It’s just that Marcus knows what befell the sisters of the Convent of Our Lady of Mercy. He’d seen it. It has been only days but even now he can bring back the details...

_...the sight of Mother Bernadette, sitting straight and tall in the pew of the chapel, an empty pastry box beside her. _

_ He remembers in that moment the feeling of Gabriel in his arms, the way the heft of the boy’s broken body could not fill the yawning chaos. Patchwork bits of the past few days come together--the circle of nuns singing and Mother Bernadette, unbending but gentle, inside; the conversation on the bench in the garden; the crucifix; her hand on his shoulder; her eyes, unwavering, like pins in the top of his head, as they argued about Casey Rance--and he sits beside her body, touches her cool hand and takes a ragged breath in. _

_ “I’m going to do this my way. Do you understand? We tried… I tried your way. But…” he falters for a moment, collects his thoughts, swipes impatiently at his wet face. “But I only know my way. And Simon--whatever he is--it’s the only way he knows too.” _

_ And as he reaches into her robes to retrieve her pocket-watch, Marcus says words he’s never had occasion to utter, either as a priest or a man, in all his 50-some years: _

_ “O God, Who has commanded us to honor our father and mother, have compassion in Thy mercy, on the soul of my mother; forgive her her sins, and grant that I may see her in the joy of eternal brightness.” _

* * *

 

After he’d squared Simon away, the full force of the day took Marcus out at the knees. Adrenaline carried him a few hundred meters before he found gravity pulling him to earth. The chaos on the parade route meant his collapse went largely unnoticed. It wasn’t dying in the street that bothered Marcus so much but the sheer number of people surrounding him.

_ Not so good with people, are you? _ Cherry had said flatly, and he thought of how peaceful she’d looked today, and he waited for the light and the voice to call him home.

And then he landed on the equally unforgiving but luxurious seats of a Lincoln Town Car. Hands reached for and found his wounded forearm and began disinfecting and wrapping it. “I’ve never admired your sense of timing more,” he slurred to Bennett, whose words of reply were lost in darkness.

* * *

 

_ Bennett cries. They are silent tears, or maybe Marcus cannot hear him because of the sound of the crowd around them, around the tree, around the body swinging from the branch. But Bennett’s mouth is closed, in that unwavering, small but firm line it makes when he does not approve. _

_ Marcus does not approve either, but it shreds at his muscles and it makes his bones feel as though they are made of concrete. The humid night air is unforgiving, and not only is Marcus crying, but he is sweating in a way that he fears will dehydrate him or drown him. _

* * *

When Marcus awakened in the hospital bed the next day (night? Like he has heard of Las Vegas, and he knew of rooms in which an exorcism takes place, there seemed to be no time here), his first sight was Bennett looking out the window, still as a statue, feigning peacefulness in a way Marcus knew was just a dodge.

“I was back in Haiti,” he tried to say, but the words were lost in a dry croak. Bennett turned and, as Marcus reached for the water on his tray, he found himself almost restored by the visible relief on Bennett’s face.

* * *

 

_ He can see Katherine’s face so clearly as the demon speaks with her sister’s voice. “Lesbo curiosity” are the words that cause her to flinch, and Marcus directs her to turn away, but he files that in the back of his mind. Casey is his first, only responsibility at the moment, but when--if?--he is victorious in rescuing the girl, he will share a sliver or two of wisdom with Kat. He thinks of Father Sean’s words to him not long after catching him, at age 15, with another boy tucked away in a closet. “Fiddling about” was Father Sean’s phrase, but unlike other transgressions that routinely resulted in the back of a hand or a kick up the arse, it had minimal consequences. “‘Bout as many poufs as not in the priesthood. You’ll be amongst good company,” the old man had said. “But I catch you fiddling about again, I’ll send you out of here. Can’t get you into St. Mary’s if you’re found out. So get better at hiding it or there’ll be trouble.” _

_ The truth was--and Marcus knew it from subsequent events--there was minimal trouble to be had from the church. He is a weapon of God, and if God has weaponized him, then certainly He is fine with the fiddling about. There is more to fear from Father Sean, and Marcus is old hand at the punitive measures he employs. _

_ There is something to be said about Kat’s mother’s disappointment and about how the schoolyard taunts of demons and the average bully weigh the same in the eyes of God, about how Father Sean’s directive to hide a part of who he was may not be one of God’s sins, but was certainly a sin of humanity… _

_...but it remains unsaid, even long after they’ve escaped the room at the convent. Katherine will be left to fight her own battles. Marcus only has room for so much mentorship. _

* * *

 

While recuperating at Tomas’ apartment, Marcus found himself thinking of one moment in particular. The recollection was unbidden and increased in frequency over the course of several days. It arrived when he was washing dishes or drawing or watching telly: the weight of the hand, the curve of the palm, the sensation of empty, mocking grace and pity emitted from a cold and dark place.

And Brother Simon’s words, the way they sounded nearly empathetic:  _ Oh, my poor boy… don’t let your life be the last thing they take. _

Marcus considered all the priests he had known over the years, the many times he had taken Communion or had a blessing conferred. In his conservative estimate, it had been in the hundreds, and they smudged together in a dense shadow. But Marcus distinctly remembered every time he’d been struck or bitten. Absentmindedly, he ran his fingers over the stitches that were binding his latest prize that would become a very noticeable scar on the most fragile part of his arm and wrist. It was a new and terrible sensation to have been touched by a demon in a manner that was gentle, Simon’s hand on the crown of his head, a blessing but an inky black one, like being bitten by a lamb with a mouth full of razors.

* * *

 

_ Tomas looks at him from across the kitchen table, a peculiar, embarrassed look on his face. _

_ “What?” He struggles, even now, to contain a general impatience with Tomas, even after, even knowing he is a brother and a compatriot. _

_ “Do you… do you think I should apologize to Casey?” _

_ He marks his place in the copy of  _ A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man _ and closes it.  _ What are you on about?  _ he thinks. “For what?” he says. _

_ Fidgeting, Tomas scoots the salt shaker back and forth on the kitchen table. “The, uh… the time I… in the attic, when...” _

_ Oh. _

_ “Couldn’t you give me an easier one?” Tomas smiles, but it wilts and dies on the vine. “It’s like I told Casey: the demon is already violating your soul and your body, controlling you like a puppet… and you’re there, but you’re gone. Only truly there when the demon temporarily retreats and allows you back. I think it’s fair to say during that particular moment, the demon was front and center. They are big fans of… carnal interactions.” And violations, Marcus thinks, but does not add. _

_ “Somehow that doesn’t make it any better,” the young priest says matter-of-factly. But his expression is a little lighter. Only a little. _

_ Marcus has taken confession and absolved Tomas, in his own way, so he finishes the interaction the best way he knows how: he shrugs, reopens his book, and says to the table more than to his partner, “S’pose it doesn’t.” _

* * *

 

...a lamb with a mouth full of razors, and a hand like Father Sean’s, heavy and familiar and full of care and forgiveness that felt like a burden and a smack and then, just like that, a crack appeared in the oppressive thoughts, and Marcus was transported to the steps in front of the Rance home.

He recalled the feeling of seeing the young woman turn and run towards him after their first goodbye, her hair dancing in the autumn wind, knowing she would come back to him one last time with the body that had lashed out at him, struck him and kicked him, the body he had nearly drowned in baptism…

… and the embrace she granted him, how like Gabriel, she was small yet heavy in his arms, and how it felt like the world was new and hopeful and fresh with God’s promise and protection.

Just like that.

Marcus reached into his jacket and palmed the pocket-watch and allowed his heart to feel lighter, let expectancy rule him for a moment or two. Then he made the Sign of the Cross and prepared to head out into the world.

**Author's Note:**

> My thanks to AnxietyGrrl for the title--excellent call


End file.
